Rebecca Beachy

Artist, Writer, Educator

2019 Make a Wave

Visual Arts

Rebecca Beachy is a Chicago-based artist, writer and educator whose practice explores the complex relationships we have with the natural world. Grounded in interests as wide-ranging as sculpture, ecology, history, the animistic qualities of homes and architectural spaces, and the materiality of plants and animals, Beachy’s work often reflects upon the ethics and the interplay of tangible material presence related to the potency of language and symbolic forms. For many years her site-sensitive sculptural installations have involved responding to exhibition spaces with the use of collected and transformed materials that address material use and extraction, life-cycles of birth, death, preservation and decomposition, and difficulties in the way human beings relate to nature. Beachy holds an MA in Art History and an MFA in Studio Arts from the University of Illinois, Chicago. She has practiced taxidermy both independently and at Chicago's Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. Beachy’s work has been exhibited throughout Chicago, the United States, and Germany, with support from 3Arts, 6018North, and Chicago Sister Cities International (Hamburg, Germany), among others. She has taught at the University of Illinois, Chicago and currently teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Rebecca Beachy's Website

A small, still pool of water is surrounded by dark, jagged rocks. The smooth surface of the pool seems to reflect the sky, showing two bright, white circular shapes resembling moons or lights against the dark rock.

Silvering, Full Moon, August 30, 2023 - Silver leaf, found plastic, bottles, bones, stones +, Lake Superior water, Scoville Point, Isle Royale National Park, Michigan Photograph by Rebecca Beachy and Liz Weinstein

Featured Artworks

A large, hammered copper bowl filled with copper-gilded coal sits inside a dark, ornate fireplace. Light shines through the inside, illuminating the gilded coal and leaking out of many small holes in the sides of the bowl like constellations.

Mercury's Hearth: Coal, Electricity, Fire & Industry Photograph by Bob (Robert Chase Heishman + Robert Salazar) Copper, Coal, Constellations of the Night of the Great Chicago Fire (Oct 8, 1871), "Materialities: A Tale of Today," Driehaus Museum, 2025

A dimly lit basement features a bookshelf and an antique wooden desk adorned with silver-gilded objects and copper pyramid sculptures. The adjacent wall has a painted mottled grey surface where at the center, water drips into tributaries

Moon desk (for the study of astrological symbolism / lunar phases) & Bone ash wall Photograph by Gloria Araya Site to host "Moon Readings" by the Artist. Materials: Silver-gilded shells, stones, fossils, lenses, paper, pyrite suns, copper cones, moon board, and hand-drawn diagrams of geocentric planetary movements, solar and lunar symbolism. Bone Ash wall: bone-ash painting from cremated Amish horses, cattle bones , 2024, w/Christine Wallers

A minimalist room with an asphalt floor, traffic cones, and cascading white ceiling tiles. Copper foil stretches hold clay and organic objects, some on bird spikes. Sunlight filters in, casting shadows and illuminating the central area.

Growing down Installation view, solo exhibition, Roman Susan Art Foundation, 2020

A gallery with a large dark-grey painting on the left wall, flanked by two smaller grey wall works on the right wall. The polished floor has a cracked appearance, with several small grey ash casts and a white ceiling tile platform placed on it.

In no time (w/Christine Wallers) Installation detail. Floor works by Rebecca Beachy, wall work by Rebecca Beachy & Christine Wallers, Ralph Arnold Gallery, Loyola University & Roman Susan Art Foundation, Chicago, 2019

A narrow backyard at dusk features uneven grass on both sides and a central gravel pathway leading to a brick wall. The left wall is adorned with green glass tiles, subtly lit by yellow lights. The right wall has grey tiles with ivy.

Gravel path Photograph by Claire Britt Cremated Amish horse bones (Chesterhill, Ohio) 30 x 15 feet, as exhibited at Sector2337, Chicago, 2017

A minimalist room with exposed brick wall on the left and plain white walls elsewhere. The room has a narrow horizontal window near the floor emitting an orange light. In the center, a folded blue horse blanket lies on a dark, glossy tiled floor.

Warm (from "The Bearer" w/Walker Blackwell) Wall photograph by Walker Blackwell Behind the gallery wall: dust of 109 dozen factory farmed eggshells, collected and ground up by hand, beneath 4 brooding heat lamps. On the gallery floor, a used horse blanket. Iceberg Projects, Chicago, 2013

A white pillow lies on a dark, reflective tile floor. Sunlight streams through a skylight, casting angular light over part of the pillow. The background features a rough, light brown stone wall. The scene has a minimalist and serene atmosphere.

Pillow (found down) Cotton gauze, down feathers (found & plucked), 2009-ongoing, as exhibited at Iceberg Projects, Chicago, 2013